Many people have stopped paying taxes ( both fed and State) and aewe converting their savings into hard assets. Gold,guns and guts will allow survival.

10:21 pm February 4, 2013

Marv Jordan wrote:

America is bankrupt and our debt will ultimately doom us, the credit ratings are garbage and influenced from within, If I had 16 trillion in debt and spent almost twice what I took in I would have a credit rating of F...Its all BS and everybody with a little common sense knows this...Stay in gold/silver and I guarantee you will make a lot of money in the coming years because the fiat dollar is ultimately junk...No agenda here just keeping it real...

10:22 pm February 4, 2013

Anonymous wrote:

When you add all debts and future obligations this country is in the whole 100 trillion...and that is being conservative... We are on an unsustainable path that I fear will only become worse because so many americans want to believe that our monetary system is working...

10:24 pm February 4, 2013

Kenny wrote:

A negative GDP
Fed printing rillions in more money
Gas approaching $4
Taxes up across the board
Unemployment back to 7.9%

Apparently Bernanke see nothing in all this.

10:25 pm February 4, 2013

EPD wrote:

Not only higher prices but smaller boxes, cans, & other portions.

10:26 pm February 4, 2013

Debt Dog wrote:

I smell another stimulus coming...

10:27 pm February 4, 2013

House of Pain wrote:

Gas on the way to $4.00 again, get ready to bend over.

10:30 pm February 4, 2013

Frank Lyon - Atlanta wrote:

Did anybody really think it (The stock market) was going to keep going up, up, up, with the Great Recession of 2008 still running, and a European recession getting worse with each passing day?

10:30 pm February 4, 2013

Ex-Apostle of the $USD wrote:

He'll eat his oatmeal in the morning, lie to the Congress a later, ho-hum so what else is new ?
BTW - Sales of safe deposit boxes over here at the National Bank of Greece are selling at a premium; we don't bother using numbered accounts here, just initials..hmmm..there's a new lessee's box..using the initials B.S.B...word has it he's stashing everything BUT U.S. Dollars

10:30 pm February 4, 2013

Don C wrote:

Loose Federal Reserve Fake Economy Dollars moving up or down means nothing to 23 million unemployed or underemployed.

6:09 am February 5, 2013

WSW wrote:

Pull up a chair and listen and learn from the master! Support The fed!

8:11 am February 5, 2013

Ex-Apostle of the $USD wrote:

The most telling remark about "the Chairman" was made by the CEO of Toll Brothers who referred to Bernanke as "Our boy" in late 2007 in his "Our boy has righted the ship" remark as the Fed accelerated its campaign of destroying the Dollar via flooding the world with paper money putting it first of all in the hands of his rich pals.

8:40 am February 5, 2013

yocona wrote:

It's hard to believe that the WSJ doesn't know there's a difference between "biannual" and "semiannual".

11:43 am February 5, 2013

NWO Globalist Reality wrote:

Devaluing a currency," one senior Federal Reserve official once told me, "is like peeing in bed. It feels good at first, but pretty soon it becomes a real mess."

In recent times, foreign-exchange incontinence appears to have been the policy of choice in capitals from Beijing to Washington, via Tokyo. The resulting mess has led to warnings of a global "currency war" that could spiral into protectionism.

The roll call of forex Cassandras reads like a who's who of global finance and politics: German leader Angela Merkel, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard, Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann and Mervyn King, the outgoing governor of the Bank of England. And the list goes on.

The luminaries are wrong on a couple of points. The world isn't "on the verge" of a currency war, as they seem to think, but right in the middle of one. But—and here's the good news—there is a chance this confrontation might not end as badly as, say, the destructive devaluations that followed the Great Depression or even the turmoil of the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998.

Currency wars have been a staple of modern finance ever since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates in the early 1970s. As Marc Chandler, global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., says: "Most governments believe that their currencies are too important to be left to the markets." So policy makers have often tried to manipulate the value of their currencies by intervening in the markets.

In recent years, China stands out as the country that has done the most to keep its currency weak in order to boost exports. But it isn't alone. China's efforts have sparked what Fred Bergsten, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, calls "emulation and retaliation."

At their worst, these periodic crosscurrents of intervention have led to "beggar-thy-neighbor" policies—self-defeating attempts to improve one country's economy at the expense of everybody else's.

The present situation is, however, fundamentally different. Most of the currency-market tensions aren't the byproduct of direct intervention or trade wars but of extreme monetary measures that are attempts to make up for nonexistent fiscal policies.

As developed countries like Japan and the U.S. try to kick-start their sluggish economies with ultralow interest rates and binges of money-printing, they are putting downward pressure on their currencies. The loose monetary policies are primarily aimed at stimulating domestic demand. But their effects spill over into the currency world.

Since the end of November, when it became clear that Shinzo Abe and his agenda of growth-at-all-costs would win Japan's elections, the yen has lost more than 10% against the dollar and some 15% against the euro.

These moves are angering export-driven countries such as Brazil and South Korea. But they also are stirring the pot in Europe. The euro zone has largely sat out this round of monetary stimulus and now finds itself in the invidious position of having a contracting economy and a rising currency—making Thursday's meeting of the European Central Bank a must-watch event.

The dirty secret is that using monetary policy to weaken a currency, whether voluntarily or not, is a shortcut to avoid unpopular decisions on fiscal and budgetary issues.

"I don't remember central banks being so deep in experimental mode," says Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive and co-chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co. "It is equivalent to a pharmaceutical company that feels forced to bring a new medicine to the market even though it has not been properly tested."

How will it end? There are two results: apocalypse or redemption.

James Rickards, a veteran financier and author of "Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis," predicts the former.

"People ask me who's winning. I say nobody," he told me. "I expect the international monetary system to destabilize and collapse. There will be so much money-printing by so many central banks that people's confidence in paper money will wane, and inflation will rise sharply."

11:47 am February 5, 2013

Ben Bernanke - 2007 wrote:

The subprime contagion is contained!

11:49 am February 5, 2013

Ben Bernanke - 2012 wrote:

We have no real indicators of where the 42 billion given to Greece from the FED/ IMF 20 percent guarantee program has actually gone.

11:50 am February 5, 2013

SWS wrote:

Devaluing a currency," one senior Federal Reserve official once told me, "is like peeing in bed. It feels good at first, but pretty soon it becomes a real mess."

In recent times, foreign-exchange incontinence appears to have been the policy of choice in capitals from Beijing to Washington, via Tokyo. The resulting mess has led to warnings of a global "currency war" that could spiral into protectionism.

The roll call of forex Cassandras reads like a who's who of global finance and politics: German leader Angela Merkel, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard, Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann and Mervyn King, the outgoing governor of the Bank of England. And the list goes on.

The luminaries are wrong on a couple of points. The world isn't "on the verge" of a currency war, as they seem to think, but right in the middle of one. But—and here's the good news—there is a chance this confrontation might not end as badly as, say, the destructive devaluations that followed the Great Depression or even the turmoil of the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998.

Currency wars have been a staple of modern finance ever since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates in the early 1970s. As Marc Chandler, global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., says: "Most governments believe that their currencies are too important to be left to the markets." So policy makers have often tried to manipulate the value of their currencies by intervening in the markets.

In recent years, China stands out as the country that has done the most to keep its currency weak in order to boost exports. But it isn't alone. China's efforts have sparked what Fred Bergsten, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, calls "emulation and retaliation."

At their worst, these periodic crosscurrents of intervention have led to "beggar-thy-neighbor" policies—self-defeating attempts to improve one country's economy at the expense of everybody else's.

The present situation is, however, fundamentally different. Most of the currency-market tensions aren't the byproduct of direct intervention or trade wars but of extreme monetary measures that are attempts to make up for nonexistent fiscal policies.

As developed countries like Japan and the U.S. try to kick-start their sluggish economies with ultralow interest rates and binges of money-printing, they are putting downward pressure on their currencies. The loose monetary policies are primarily aimed at stimulating domestic demand. But their effects spill over into the currency world.

Since the end of November, when it became clear that Shinzo Abe and his agenda of growth-at-all-costs would win Japan's elections, the yen has lost more than 10% against the dollar and some 15% against the euro.

These moves are angering export-driven countries such as Brazil and South Korea. But they also are stirring the pot in Europe. The euro zone has largely sat out this round of monetary stimulus and now finds itself in the invidious position of having a contracting economy and a rising currency—making Thursday's meeting of the European Central Bank a must-watch event.

The dirty secret is that using monetary policy to weaken a currency, whether voluntarily or not, is a shortcut to avoid unpopular decisions on fiscal and budgetary issues.

"I don't remember central banks being so deep in experimental mode," says Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive and co-chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co. "It is equivalent to a pharmaceutical company that feels forced to bring a new medicine to the market even though it has not been properly tested."

How will it end? There are two results: apocalypse or redemption.

James Rickards, a veteran financier and author of "Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis," predicts the former.

"People ask me who's winning. I say nobody," he told me. "I expect the international monetary system to destabilize and collapse. There will be so much money-printing by so many central banks that people's confidence in paper money will wane, and inflation will rise sharply."

11:52 am February 5, 2013

SWS wrote:

Pull up a chair and listen and learn from the master! criminal. End the Fed!

11:54 am February 5, 2013

Plano Bob wrote:

Keep your Gold and buy ammunition.

12:07 pm February 5, 2013

Jimmy boy wrote:

Gold and silver may be off their highs but that hasn’t hurt demand for gold and silver coins. Sales of silver eagle coins hit a new record last month and gold coin sales in January reached their highest level in almost 19 months.

"You can’t get [silver coins]. They sell out,” says legendary investor Jim Rogers. “Several mints have run out of coins…because everybody’s worried about the future of the world.”

Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings and author of the new book, "Street Smarts: Adventures on the Road and in the Markets," tells The Daily Ticker that he “would like to to buy more coins but they sell out as fast as they are minted.

Rogers says he’ll buy more gold only if prices fall further (gold is currently trading 12% below its record high of $1,900).

“Gold has been up 12 years in a row which is extremely unusual for anything," he notes.

Gold and silver, like most commodities, are priced in U.S. dollars. Rogers is not a fan at all of the collapsing greenback but other currencies, such as the Japanese yen, are collapsing also.

The yen has fallen to a 2-1/2 year low against the U.S. Dollar and has weakened against the euro as a result of the Bank of Japan's aggressive easy money policy.

The man who heads the Bank of Japan, Governor Masaaki Shirakawa, said Tuesday he would step down March 19, three weeks earlier than planned. He was presumably under pressure to ease even more aggressively in order to reverse Japan’s long-term deflation. Investors have turned bearish on the yen but Rogers says he is "contemplating buying some" because of the decline.

When asked which currency holds the most promise now short term, Rogers says it might be the Russian ruble although “he’s stunned” to hear himself say that.

”Russia has massive problems…that’s why the ruble is so cheap," he notes. "There’s great change taking place in Russia and whenever you can find a cheap place with massive positive change taking place you should buy all you can.”

In the meantime, he advises investors not to sell their gold and silver coins. "There is no paper money in 2014 or 2015 that will be worth much of anything," he says.

12:13 pm February 5, 2013

Nevada gold miner wrote:

Biggest buyers of gold in the world are Germany and China followed closely by India. That should tell you something right there.

12:15 pm February 5, 2013

Hans wrote:

Germany recently repatriated there gold out of the U.S. who they didn;t trust to hold it anymore.

12:16 pm February 5, 2013

Hal Smith wrote:

Fiat fake paper is nearing it's obliteration.

12:21 pm February 5, 2013

John Titor wrote:

This will not end well for the United Stated. It will be an unmitigated disaster of epic proportions causing worldwide economic problems of the highest degree.

12:27 pm February 5, 2013

2916 wrote:

After the war, the United States had split into five separate regions based on the various factors and military objectives they each had. There was a great deal of anger directed toward the Federal Reserve and government and a revival of states rights was becoming paramount. However, in their attempt to create an economic form of government, the political and military leaders at the time decided to hold one last Constitutional Congress in order to present a psychological cohesion from the old system.

During this Congress, the leaders discovered and decided that coming up with a new and better form of government was nearly impossible. The original Constitution itself was not the problem it was the ignorance of the people that lived under it.

12:28 pm February 5, 2013

2016 wrote:

After the war, the United States had split into five separate regions based on the various factors and military objectives they each had. There was a great deal of anger directed toward the Federal government and a revival of states rights was becoming paramount. However, in their attempt to create an economic form of government, the political and military leaders at the time decided to hold one last Constitutional Congress in order to present a psychological cohesion from the old system.

During this Congress, the leaders discovered and decided that coming up with a new and better form of government was nearly impossible. The original Constitution itself was not the problem it was the ignorance of the people that lived under it.

12:33 pm February 5, 2013

Cooper's Troopers wrote:

Without diving headfirst into the dark and sordid world of U.S. politics, policies such as the Patriot Act and the NDAA do point in this direction, and the U.S. Government has continued to grow since 9/11. Future legislation like SOPA, PIPA, and the already-signed ACTA slowly chip away at the average citizen’s rights, making way for massive corporations to swoop in and claim, well, everything.

12:38 pm February 5, 2013

King Harbor wrote:

The FED has been Monetizing our debt since 2008, it’s the ONLY way our country can stay afloat. How inspiring is that?

In my opinion S&P should downgrade the United States again because all this QE spending (in the Trillions) has done nothing for JOBS and our economy but make the rich get richer on Wall Street.

1:33 pm February 5, 2013

LD Bauer wrote:

Debt crushes the economy. The Fed has created 132 trillion in debt.

1:41 pm February 5, 2013

Bernanke's ratings buddies wrote:

The U.S. alleges that S&P knew the housing market was collapsing but delayed downgrading securities for fear that would curb new deals

1:44 pm February 5, 2013

Carol wrote:

The United States Is in reality is totally bankrupt and doing anything to deny it will just prolong the agony to Zimbabwe laughingstock results. The Fed created it, they own it.

1:57 pm February 5, 2013

History guy wrote:

The fed inflated the stock market to new highs daily in the late 1920's until the house of cards collapsed and the depression arrived in full force. Sound familiar? Some people just don't learn.

2:01 pm February 5, 2013

Enough said wrote:

Geithner worked for Kissinger Associates in Washington for three years.

2:54 pm February 5, 2013

Diug Milton wrote:

Geithner looks to be going to the World Banks He'd be in a position to help the banksters wreck the global economy again?

3:19 pm February 5, 2013

Volunteer wrote:

Corker is always running around like a chicken with it's head cut off, PLEASE!

Add a Comment

Error message

Name

We welcome thoughtful comments from readers. Please comply with our guidelines. Our blogs do not require the use of your real name.

About Real Time Economics

Real Time Economics offers exclusive news, analysis and commentary on the U.S. and global economy, central bank policy and economics. Send news items, comments and questions to the editors and reporters below or email realtimeeconomics@wsj.com.